Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 12:28:36 +0100
From: Iain McKay <iain.mckay-AT-zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: owned vs. free market


hello all

Joacim Persson wrote: 
> On Mon, 14 Jul 2003, Kevin Carson wrote:
> > >trade in as labour. The rest of the product comes mostly from oil. Precious
> > >little of the produced value in the industrialised world is the result of
> > >actual human labour.
> >
> > You are ignoring the distinction between use value and exchange value.
> 
> Actually, I was drawing the logical consequence from the view that there is
> an exact, objective value of work. Exchange value (a subjective value) is a
> meaningful concept only on a free market. 

actually, this is nonsense. There are objective costs in any form of 
production and in a free market the exchange value will, in the long
run, be forced down to it. Simply put, no one sells for a loss. That
"subjective" value supporters seem to forget this truism, says it all.

Economics is far from being
> an exact science. 

In the case of most bourgeois economics, it is not even a science. In
the case of the like of von Mises and other right-"libertarian" 
economic gurus, they are pretty explicit in denying the importance
of empirical evidence in value of "logical deductions." In other words,
the "subjectivist" school is not a science, it's a religion.

If we look for exact values, we go to physics. (and be
> amazed at how over-paid we are, unless we starve ;) If we look for an
> inexact subjective value as exchange value, we can't whine about something
> we accepted as a fair trade, by taking the job.

Says it all, really. When push comes to shove, when you talk about
freedom
to an "anarcho"-capitalist you always get told, in the end, "shut up and
stop complaining" -- or "love it or leave it".

And its funny, but I wasn't aware we actually lived in a "free market"
and
so how can we be said to have a "fair trade"? It is only by ignoring the 
long history of state intervention in favour of capitalism can anyone
say
that we make a "fair trade" today.

It's a bit like breaking someone legs yesterday and then challenging
them
to a "fair race" today and saying that "can't whine" about it...

aren't capitalists lovely!

Iain